ODF Falls Prey to a Nasty Little Turf War

Posted by VISITOR on Nov 17, 2005 6:27 AM EDT
ConsortiumInfo.org; By Andy Updegrove
Mail this story
Print this story

Today, ODF became just a political football on Beacon Hill, as Massachusetts politicians jostled to take control of IT policy in the Commonwealth.

ODF turned into nothing but a forgotten political football in the Massachusetts Senate today when Senator William Morrissey pulled his own amendment to S 2256 and replaced it with something even worse. The new amendment takes power away from the Governor and hands it to Secretary of State William Galvin, but goes even farther. Unlike Peter Quinn's original bill, which would have affected only the Executive Agencies, the new version would give Galvin power over every agency, department -- and even municipality -- in Massachusetts.



So the battle has gone well beyond a spat over who can set format standards that affect other parts of the Massachusetts government, and bloomed into a grab for as much IT power as the Secretary of the Commonwealth can get.



Will Romney push back? Not likely, it seems. Most folks here think he's angling for the White House in 2008, which will put him up against (among other forces) the lobbying budgets of large, well financed software companies. A hint of what he may do is suggested by the title of a CRN interview posted today: Mass. Gov Backs OpenDoc Policy But Distances Himself From Decision http://www.crn.com/sections/breakingnews/dailyarchives.jhtml...



You can read the new amendment and an analysis here: http://www.consortiuminfo.org/newsblog/blog.php?ID=1745

Full Story

  Nav
» Read more about: Story Type: News Story

« Return to the newswire homepage

This topic does not have any threads posted yet!

You cannot post until you login.